| Last week, I decided to do my daily jog up the North Gully of Tahquitz instead of just walking around town on trails. There was some huge thawing in the couple of weeks prior and I wanted to check on what (if anything ) remained of the snow on the North Face. Brought crampons and ski poles. Found two things: The North gully is totaly frozen with a hard neve almost from the creek up. The last section was pretty steep, I could have used an ice axe, but managed (just barely) using ski poles as ice tools. The other thing was that the NE Rib (summer easy 5th class) was completely iced up and could possibly provide one hell of an ice climb all the way to the North Gully Notch. The North Face had little ice left.The descent to Lunch Rock and back to Humber Park was the crux, waist deep snow at places and a lot of obsticles. What fun. |
